Torres v. MMS Group LLC

Background

Elewood Torres filed an application for a temporary restraining order and a motion for a preliminary injunction. The opinion does not explain the underlying claims or identify all requested relief, but it refers to requested changes involving visual emergency alerts with strobe lights, elevator cameras and video monitoring, vibration notification appliances, and other recently implemented or anticipated changes.

Temporary Restraining Order

The court denied Torres’s temporary restraining order application because he did not comply with the court’s Individual Rule 4(h). That rule requires a party to confer with the opposing party before applying for a temporary restraining order unless the requirements for emergency relief under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 65(b) are met.

The court gave an independent reason as well. It explained that a temporary restraining order is an extraordinary form of emergency relief generally used to preserve the existing situation until the court can consider a preliminary injunction. The court found that Torres was instead seeking relief that would substantially change the existing situation and that he offered no persuasive reason for granting that wide-ranging relief on a temporary restraining-order application. The court also noted that the case had been filed on July 19, 2022, and that Torres waited approximately 14 months before seeking the temporary restraining order without adequately explaining the delay.

Preliminary-Injunction Proceedings

The court did not decide the merits of the preliminary-injunction motion. Instead, it ordered the defendants to provide Torres by November 15, 2023, with documents or other information concerning: the newly implemented visual emergency alert system featuring strobe lights; the newly implemented elevator camera and video monitoring system; the anticipated timeline for acquiring and implementing vibration notification appliances; and any other recent or anticipated changes addressing the relief sought in the motion.

The court also ordered the parties to meet and confer in good faith and file a joint status letter by November 17, 2023. The letter had to state whether any requested relief had already been provided, identify any discovery the defendants sought to oppose the motion, propose a briefing schedule, and propose dates for a preliminary-injunction hearing, including whether live testimony would be necessary.

Disposition

The temporary restraining order application was denied. The court issued case-management and information-sharing orders concerning the preliminary-injunction motion but did not rule on that motion’s ultimate merits.